A/N: I'M GOING TO SPAM YOU TODAY! Beware my awesomeness!... or my lameness. However you interpret it. ;) Ectoplasm. (Strokes chin). Hmm...
It was a sample. Jack and I had followed the ghost kid, who went into an alley way two minutes before. We had followed his ectoplasm trail. It was dripping from a wound on his back left leg. It was starting to heal a bit. Jack and I wanted to get him to stop for a minute. If we couldn't capture him, then we could get an ectoplasm sample.
It turns out, we didn't need to make him stop. He must've stopped in the alley way for a minute or more, because there was a small puddle of it. It wasn't a big puddle, but it was within a sunken part of the alley, so it was good for a sample. Perfect. I took out a clear container and scooped about three tablespoons of ectoplasm into it. I capped it and looked at the sample.
It looked like it was slightly darker than normal ectoplasm, but then I had put it off because of the dark. I ran back to the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle (GAV) and jumped into the driver's seat. I really didn't want Jack driving today. Jack hopped into the passenger side when he saw I was driving. He frowned for a moment, but quickly started becoming his happy self.
"I'm so excited! Ectoplasm from the Ghost Kid! He won't stand a chance once we calibrate all of our weapons to track him down! He won't escape us, and we'll rip him apart- molecule by molecule!" Jack said, smiling broadly. I patted his shoulder.
"But first, we have to dissect it. Then we can rip it apart molecule by molecule." I reminded my husband gently. He was so excitable.
"Aww, but Mads..." Jack started. Then he realized that I had told him he could rip apart the remains. "Wait... so we aren't keeping the remains like you wanted to?" Jack asked. I giggled.
"No. I get the dissection, and you get to rip apart the remains. It's a fair deal." I stated, still giggling. Jack kissed me on the cheek. I blushed slightly and kept driving.
The rest of the ride home was spent in comfortable silence. I had no idea that our plan was going to totally go awry.
The ectoplasm sample would need to be looked over once, decontaminated. That would take the entire night, so Jack and I slept after we slid the sample into the decontamination chamber. We woke up, shoed our kids off to school (in hopes that they would both stay there the entire day and not skip class), and got ready for the day.
I was so excited, descending the staircase to the basement. Jack was even more excited than me, like he always is, and he was jumping down the stairs two at a time. "Be careful, Hon!" I called down the stairs.
"No problem!" Jack called back. About a half second later I heard a crash. "I'm okay!" Jack said as I entered the basement. I saw that the shelf on the bottom had just collapsed. Thankfully, that's the one that just had empty beakers and graduated cylinders. I shook my head and grabbed the spare broom that I had bought. I swept up the mess and replaced the unbroken board back on the brackets.
Jack was standing by, carefully clutching the sample. I put out my hand and Jack gave the ectoplasm to me. I studied it for a moment, because it looked different. Not exactly ectoplasm, but something just like it. To me, it looked a little darker than normal ectoplasm, less shinier, too. I shrugged, figuring it was just the lighting in the lab or my eyesight starting to leave me.
I took the vial and poured half of it into the Ecto-Sampler. It could sample anything relating to ghosts. I took the other half and poured a drop into a glass slide. I covered the slide with a plastic film and stationed it under the microscope. I put my eye onto the lens and adjusted the magnification, getting the blurriness out of my eyes. However, what I found wasn't ectoplasm. I knew ectoplasm like the back of my hand. It was DNA strands. Well, not DNA exactly - they were green strands of DNA, like they were fused with ectoplasm. I gasped and drew my head back. Jack stared at me, startled. He was waiting for the results of the ectoplasm scan. I motioned him over to the microscope. A second after Jack put his eye to the lens, he drew back, a confused expression written across his face. "It's almost as if those are DNA strands, with ectoplasm fused onto them." Jack stated, clearly confused.
"That's what I was thinking. But if that's true, then..." I trailed off, waiting for Jack to finish my thought, like I knew he would.
"Phantom isn't a ghost. Or, not entirely." Jack said crinkling his forehead. "But how is that possible? Ectoplasm in it's pure form is rare, and then there'd have to be an extremely strong electrical current to bond the DNA and the ectoplasm together, leaving somebody with a mutated DNA gene. That could possibly give them ghost powers." Jack said, slowing down as he neared the end if his statement. I nodded. What circumstance could that possibly happen under?
"Maybe if we run another electrical current through it, we could separate the DNA and the ectoplasm, if it really is bonded together." I suggested.
"Yeah. Let's do that." Jack said, already scrambling around the lab, finding the parts needed. I smiled at my husband's eagerness. Just then I heard a beep and realized that the examination done by the Ecto-Sampler had just come through. I ran over and read the results. They just confirmed what I had feared was true; Phantom wasn't just a ghost, he was human. I bit my lip, thinking about how it- or he, rather -had always defended himself, saying he was just trying to help. I zoned out for a minute until Jack tapped me lightly on the shoulder. I spun around and realized it was only Jack. "Ready?" He asked.
"Yes." I slid my goggles over my head and Jack pushed the big red button on the ecto-tasers. Her ad jacked up the setting to it's limits for all three of the ones he had. They were painted at the same spot, the extra vial of the sample we had taken. The tasers shot out blue high voltage electrical beams and the ectoplasmic DNA started sperating into ectoplasm and blood. I rubbed my forehead.
Crap. We hadn't been hunting a malicious ghost, we had been hunting a benevolent human/ghost hybrid, and threatening to tear him apart, too. But there was one thought left in my mind. Who was this hybrid, and did I know him? I gathered the blood into a vial and brought it over to the Ecto-Sampler. I hoped desperately that it would work on everyday, human DNA. When, ten minutes later, the results came up, I was speechless. I turned to Jack and he was right next to me, stuttering.
"D-d-Danny?"
Tee hee! Was that good? Bad? Terrible? Remember, this is unedited.
Review!
(People, come on. There are fourteen - well, now fifteen - chapters and I've gotten four reviews. Enough to count on one hand! You've got to be kidding me. Am I really that terrible/annoying to the point that I don't deserve a review? I'M SPAMMING YOU FOR GOODNESS SAKES!)